


When you go.  If you go

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Canon divergent at series seven, M/M, Minor Non-Canon Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:05:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then, when I can still feel the ghost of his touch, when his scent lingers on my skin, he’ll push me away and I will be left with one more open wound.  I start the car and drive away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you go.  If you go

I find James standing with his hands in the pockets of his coat looking out over the scrubby fields behind the farmhouse, gaze fixed on the horizon. The wind is whipping up dust storms in the bitter, dry cold. A bleak, alien Oxfordshire I hardly recognise.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” I say.

“I didn’t want to smoke too close to the building. Are SOCO done?”

“And Arson. There’s not much left in the way of evidence.”

“But the fire was started deliberately?”

“No question. And we were right about it being a drug factory.”

“No more victims?”

“Just the one we saw. Laura says male but any ID burnt to a crisp.”

“I spoke to the owners just now,” James says. “As far as they knew the property was empty. They inherited the house and land a couple of years ago and haven’t been able to sell it. I can’t think why.”

“I know, not what you’d call picturesque. So no name from that quarter. Hopefully DNA will come up with a match because we won’t get visual identification.”

I see him blink back the memory of what we saw when Arson called us in; what was left of the body after an explosion and fire swept through.

“You’re all right?” I ask.

“Yes, sir. You?”

I shrug. The sights I could have done without seeing, “Me and Laura are going for a drink after, why don’t you –“

“Come to mine,” he interrupts. 

He kicks at the root of a dying shrub reaching its knotty fingers out of the earth, glances up but only for a moment.

We return to the crime scene where SOCO are packing up their equipment and a small convoy of cars and vans drive away. The stench of smoke, laced with headier scents, is heavy in the air. I know what his invitation means and I know I shouldn’t go. 

xxx

Laura puts her drink down first. She wants to go home; to wash away the day’s lingering horrors. She gives me a kiss and tells me to be careful. I drive the wrong way, taking the wrong turnings, having this conversation with absent James.

‘It was you who said we shouldn’t, it was you who said it was a mistake, that it was wrong. You didn’t say ‘sin’ but the word was there, in the air.’

I sit in the car outside James’ flat, where the light is on in the front room and the blinds are drawn down. James opens the door, waits for me.

He has changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, showered too, his hair drying spikily, his feet bare. Almost impossible to resist like this. The hard strength of a rower’s body beneath that soft fabric. It could, for the few moments allowed, belong to me. I could feel him move beneath me, around me, lips, breath, hands, the beat of his heart.

Then, when I can still feel the ghost of his touch, when his scent lingers on my skin, he’ll push me away and I will be left with one more open wound. I start the car and drive away.

xxx

There is a leather holdall on top of my wardrobe. Pushed back so not immediately visible on entering the room. James keeps a change of clothes here, some toiletries, so that a callout in the middle of the night would not mean arriving at a crime scene in yesterday’s suit. A minor precaution. I have a similar bag under James’ bed. We should have quietly reclaimed our possessions months ago; a hostage exchange on some eastern European border. I take the bag down before I go to bed and unzip it. The almond tang of his soap and shampoo is enough to let me sleep.

xxx

James is having a low, sharp argument on his mobile phone when I come in the next morning. 

“All right,” he hisses. “I said, all right.” 

The call ends and he throws down the phone. 

“James?” I ask.

“It’s nothing,” he says and turns back to his computer.

A moment later he checks his pocket for cigarettes and goes out of the room. When he slips back behind his desk ten minutes later it is without looking at me or speaking.

He clicks through emails and reads from the preliminary Forensic report, “Substances in significant quantities, likely to be heroin and cocaine. Also cutting agents and the equipment you’d expect. It’s why the fire caught so quickly and burned so hard.” 

“Better get on to SOCU.”

“I was about to.”

The Serious and Organised Crime Unit send over DC Teri Connor, a young officer, sunny and chatty. Her cheeriness soon dries up in the face of the icy atmosphere.

James briefs Teri on yesterday’s events and she tells us about a series of recent incidents which indicate trouble brewing on the local scene; heroin consignments stolen, skirmishes over territory, another fire in a dealer’s unoccupied flat.

“So it’s possible our victim was attempting to disrupt an established network and was murdered for his trouble,” I suggest.

“No one would torch all that product otherwise.”

Teri has names and locations and, in the absence of a DNA match to identify the body, these are the leads we follow. It is a weary slog, not only because we are dealing with hostile and reluctant witnesses but because James remains in silent mode. It doesn’t get any better in the days that follow and it drags the three of us down.

He takes to staying at work later even than usual and, judging by the state of him in the morning, going out drinking afterwards. I’m not invited so I could not say where he has been or what he is doing, but by the end of the week I have been cornered by Jean Innocent.

“What’s going on with Hathaway?” She demands.

“I think he’s a bit under the weather, ma’am.”

“Really? I think he’s hungover.”

“I’ll have a word.”

“And he looks like he slept in his clothes. Isn’t he going home at night?” A question to dwell on. “For goodness sake, Robbie, I have enough of this kind of thing in the squad room, I don’t expect it from James.”

I go into the office where he is at his desk rubbing circles into his forehead and staring at his screen. I close the door.

“You’re in a right mess and it’s been noticed.” He doesn’t move but I see his pale skin flush. “Go home, take a shower, put on a clean shirt.”

He closes his eyes for a moment.

“Yes, sir,” he says and does just that. He has nothing else to say to me. This isn’t our finest hour.

I know this is my fault. My fault for abusing my position and damaging our working relationship as well as our friendship. I know I am to blame, but I’m hoping he can move on because otherwise it will mean the end of us completely.

xxx

But he is a stubborn bugger and the silent treatment continues. Laura collects me for a drink after work one evening. It is a relief to have a break from the atmosphere and an evening with someone who doesn’t hate me. We are out later than intended and wandering back through town looking for taxis when we spot James.

He is outside one of the busier, noisier pubs in central Oxford, looking the worse for drink. He is holding two glasses of spirits and slouching a shoulder against a wall. The woman he is with is young and slim with long dark hair. I recognise her; her name is Ginny Stevens. She is a solicitor with the Crown Prosecution Service and often to be seen around the station.

Ginny lights two cigarettes and exchanges one of them for one of the drinks. She is so much smaller than he is, when he kisses her he has to stoop, but they are a good looking couple anyway. ‘There,’ I silently say, ‘wasn’t I right to walk away?’ 

James turns as if he has heard me. He must catch whatever expression I haven’t been able to conceal because he straightens and looks away.

“Did something happen between you?” Laura asks, as I let her lead me away. “I’ve never seen you so distant from each other.”

“I let him down, Laura. I wasn’t there when he needed me. I don’t think he can forgive me.”

She frowns, “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like James. That’s not our James.” 

xxx

The next day James does not come into work. He calls Innocent to request a week of leave. She approves it because, she says, it sounded like it should have been sick leave.

Teri and I work together. She’s a nice girl of course, a breath of fresh air and not a bad DC, but she doesn’t have James’ insight or thoroughness and we are not making the progress we should.

James does not take the entire week off. I come in to find him at his desk three days later. He hasn’t stumbled in from the pub either; he is his old sharp-suited self. He has had a haircut and, apparently, a good night’s sleep. He gathers our mugs and goes to make tea.

Beside my desk I find the overnight bag I have kept under James’ bed for the last few years. He has given it back to me. It seems a final act, a line drawn, a turn of the knife even. I recognise I am being pushed away. We never had a relationship, we never had a love affair, just a few stolen nights which I put an end to, so why should this be so painful?

I’m taking a call when he returns and I watch him put down our tea, close the door and wait at my desk until he has my attention.

“I wanted to apologise for asking for time off without warning,” he says when I am off the phone. “And for leaving you shorthanded in the middle of a live case.”

“You’re allowed to take your holiday time,” I snap back.

“I also want to apologise for the way I’ve been behaving. It’s going to stop. I haven’t deserved the patience you’ve shown me. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” I mumble, disarmed. “As long as you’re all right.”

“I am. Thank you. And there was something else. I had to -, my father had a fall a couple of weeks back, he’s just been discharged from JR.”

“Your dad?” I have never even heard him mention his father since the Stephen Black case. “You should have said. We could have spared you to visit him before.”

“He didn’t want me. He only wanted my sister there when he was ill.”

Sister?

“But I visited him at home yesterday.”

“How is he?”

He shrugs, “Not right. Dementia.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. If you need more time, take it. Family comes first.”

“I don’t - I mean I don’t really have that sort of family. But it made me think, led me to make a decision. If you believe I’m ready, I want to go for inspector.”

“James, that’s great news. You’ve been ready for a long time.”

He thanks me and we talk through the process. I assure him he’ll have the support he needs from me and if I’m already lonely from anticipating the loss of him, I don’t let him see. Neither do we talk about the bag sitting like a sleeping dog at my feet.

xxx

Things do improve between us and we start working as a team again. There is still a wall; our days of pub lunches and evening pints are over but at least we are on easier, friendlier terms and can share the odd joke. Even Teri starts to look less anxious.

We have narrowed our investigation down to one of the largest and most powerful criminal gangs in the county and we focus on gathering information on how it functions. Treading carefully at first we talk to users and street level dealers about their connections and contacts; the sprats and minnows normally overlooked in favour of pursuing the bigger fish. 

Our questioning elicits odd bits of intelligence which starts to fit together into a wider picture. An organisational chart, which we call the ‘family tree’, takes shape on a white board in our office. SOCU take an interest; one or other of them wandering in now and then to study it and add a name or a photograph.

We find out who has been absent from the scene lately and who has not been showing up for deals. The information starts to point toward one particular individual. Talking to his family gets us the rest of the way and we make a positive DNA identification. Ravi Ibrahim. The victim finally gets a name.

Another name has been cropping up a lot in our investigations; that of Joe Lucius. He is an addict who has been noted by other users to have been flashing around a lot of cash. Teri finds him and arrests him for possession and after some careful questioning on James’ part he confesses to arson and murder. 

We meet with Innocent and a DCI from SOCU and a decision is taken to pursue the case further. Although he is too scared to say so, it seems clear Lucius was paid to start the fire in the farmhouse. There is a higher profile arrest to be made.

xxx

The next morning there is a knock at my flat door. It is James. He is driving today so I am expecting him but he is, rather unexpectedly, holding a hanging basket brimming with flowers and shrubs.

“Happy birthday, sir.”

“Ah, you daft so and so.” 

Lyn and the family are driving down for lunch on Saturday and being wrapped up in the escalation of our murder enquiry, I had more or less forgotten my birthday is actually today. I am surprised as well. James has always marked the day one way or another, but never before with a gift and never when the atmosphere between us has been so brittle.

We spend the day in the interview room; James and Teri taking turns to question Joe Lucius following our detailed strategy. As the day progresses, he gets careless and lets information slip. He has earned money running for some of the dealers and can fill in gaps in our family tree. He tells us about shipping routes and channels of communication and finally gives us the man who paid him to set the farmhouse fire and supplied him with accelerant.

It is Mark Baker; a name we have sitting at the mid-point of the tree. He is a fairly new arrival on the Oxfordshire drug scene having been known to the police in West Yorkshire for years.

He is good at keeping out of trouble, his reputation being that of a low level functionary. According to Lucius, the reality is different. He is gradually but ruthlessly acquiring power and wealth, controlling those he can, deposing those he can’t and inspiring fear in everyone he deals with. Those who cross him, Ibrahim being one, often come to violent ends. Lucius has disobeyed him by staying in Oxford and is keen to see him locked away.

The CPS have other ideas. Ginny’s advice is that, without corroboration, the self-serving evidence of an admitted murderer and drug addict is unlikely to be enough to convict. She advises us not to question Baker until we have more evidence against him. I daresay she is right but I am distracted by the way she and James fail to make eye contact even once.

xxx

I am finishing up for the day and trying to send James home to prepare for his inspector’s exam which is just next week when I find him standing at my desk.

“Are you doing anything for your birthday tonight?” He asks.

“Not tonight, but I’m seeing the family at the weekend. Why? You haven’t got a cake and candles up your sleeve?”

“No time to bake, unfortunately. But instead, can I take you to dinner?”

“You what?” I must have misheard; we haven’t even sat in a pub together in weeks.

“There’s a restaurant I want to try I think you’ll like.” He hesitates. “Just if you fancy it.”

“That’d be great, James,” I say before I have a chance to rationalise myself out of it. His smile meets mine, I think for the first time since all this bloody awful unreachability started.

xxx

The restaurant is the sort of small, independent place James would seek out. Classy but welcoming, with decent portions and lots of complicated gravy. 

Ravi Ibrahim’s murder has been occupying all our time and headspace but we avoid the subject. We talk instead about inspector vacancies. There is likely to be one across the corridor in the Major Crime Unit and I am hoping James will apply for it. He says, yes, he probably will.

We eat a good dinner, the wine loosens our tongues and I find myself asking, ‘why now?’ A subject we definitely should be steering clear of. James hesitates before replying.

“It’s not what you probably think. I realised I’ve been drifting. With my dad and the job. Everything really. I needed to take a bit more control of my life.”

“Ginny’s a nice girl. Are you still seeing her?”

“Oh. No. I couldn’t take the permanent hangover.”

I’ve worked with Ginny for a while and although I’m sure she can put away as much alcohol as any modern young woman, I know she is also steady and hardworking, just as James is. He must catch my doubtful look. 

“Maybe it wasn’t just that,” he says softly.

I wait, hoping the silence will encourage him to speak but he smiles crookedly and studies the menu.

Not for the first time, I realise how unforgiveable my behaviour has been. I know James has difficulties with relationships. I know he is often alone. Should I, in my aloneness, have taken advantage? Not listened when he expressed discomfort? How much better is he doing without me holding him back? And how long will it be before he finds someone worthy of him, someone he can settle with? 

I realise belatedly James has stopped talking and I have missed most of his meandering discourse on the dessert wine selection. 

“Sorry, James, where were we?”

He frowns, “Are you all right?”

“Course I am. What about some coffee? I don’t think I’ve room for dessert.”

“Should I not have monopolised your birthday?” He asks, suddenly. “Maybe you would have done something with Dr Hobson?”

“Laura? Why would we? When have I spent my birthday with anyone other than you?” He smiles at the daft truth of this. “Though normally I only get a pint, of course. This has been great.”

“I just thought -. Never mind, none of my business.”

“No, go on.”

“I wasn’t sure, if you and she -.”

“Oh, you know, we’ll see.”

I suppose I have been seeing more of Laura lately; she’s a good friend. If it makes things easier for him, I’ll let him think more is a possibility.

He nods as if now, at last, he properly understands. He waves the waiter over to order coffees and I have the sense I have done something final, irrevocable and for the best. I will miss him, God knows. I can hardly believe, as he sits across from me, in this warm and accommodating mood, I will never have him in my arms again. This beautiful man can never belong to me.

xxx

Three months have passed and spring is here. Ravi Ibrahim’s murder has become almost the one constant in my life. While other cases come and go, it is not yet closed.

SOCU send Teri to borrow the whiteboard displaying our family tree and I watch her roll it out of the office. She has been assigned the task of investigating the gang from a drugs point of view, but she complains of a lack of resources and questions over the reliability of our witness evidence.

Then suddenly I am without a sergeant. Jean Innocent arranges for James to transfer to a station across the city to temporarily cover an inspector vacancy in Robbery. In at the deep end while he awaits the results of his exam. I don’t think I have ever seen him as anxious as he is on his last Friday with me. But he puts on that blank mask of his and off he goes.

xxx

One afternoon, when I have been without James for a couple of weeks, I get a call from Teri. She tells me SOCU received intelligence about a meeting of gang members with some out of town suppliers. They attended and made arrests. One of the more junior ranking visitors, who is looking to cooperate to get his charges dropped, claims to have known Ibrahim. They had wanted to branch out on their own and had been working together to set up an alternative supply route. This resulted in a direct verbal threat from Mark Baker just before Ibrahim’s murder.

Ginny agrees this could be considered corroboration and gives us authorisation to question Baker.

With Teri driving, we go to Baker’s house out toward Witney. He must see us approaching because as we draw up, he emerges with car keys and a rifle. I manage to keep Teri in the car. 

“He’s armed. Stay where you are.”

I call for back up and Armed Response while Teri goes off in pursuit. I’m telling her to slow down and follow at a distance. It is too dangerous to attempt to apprehend someone we know to be armed. But Baker is picking up speed on the quiet road and Teri is in no mood to lose him.

Baker makes a sudden swerve around a corner and Teri follows. As we turn we see he has stopped and is aiming his rifle out of the car window. He shoots and although the bullet only glances off a wing mirror, Teri has instinctively veered off to avoid the shot. I remember hurtling toward a wall, jolting forward and everything going black. 

I come to seconds later in a fight with an airbag. Driver’s side took the force of the impact and, although Teri was wearing a seatbelt, she is unconscious and not looking good.

Baker has gone but a couple of cars have stopped and an ambulance is already on its way. I talk to Teri while we wait and she wakes and speaks for a few moments. I am hoping this is a good sign.

Services arrive and the poor girl has to be cut out of the car before she can be taken away. After I’ve updated the first officer on the scene, I am advised to go to hospital for a check-up myself as I briefly lost consciousness.

With just a few cuts and bruises and no apparent head injury, I am soon cleared to go home on the proviso I don’t stay alone overnight. After a moment’s hesitation over my phone list, I call Laura.

She drives me to her house and while she gets the spare room ready, I speak to Jean Innocent. I learn that Teri is in surgery and has been for some hours.

My bruised ribs and shoulder start to bother me so I take paracetamol before making my way painfully to bed. I sleep through the evening and wake in the middle of the night immediately aware I am no longer alone. It is James. He is asleep next to me on the bed, lying on top of the covers clutching a pillow, still dressed apart from tie, shoes and jacket.

It takes me a while to orient myself and persuade myself he is really here. I watch him wake in the beautiful, baffled way he has.

“Are you all right?” He asks.

“Aye, I think so.”

“Laura asked me to stop by. She was called in.”

“A murder?”

James sits up, runs fingers through sleep-troubled hair.

“Sir. Robbie. Teri died of her injuries this evening.”

I don’t know how, but I go from lying down to standing in a second.

“I need to get in, I want Baker found. This is not manslaughter, this is murder.”

A wave of nausea stops me in my tracks and James is suddenly there, lowering me down so I am sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning back against him.

“It’s done,” he says. “We got him.”

I turn, “You did?”

“Innocent asked for me because I know the case. But speed cameras and plate recognition did most of the work.”

“He had a gun, James.”

“We were prepared. We caught up with him on the M40 heading north. He threatened an officer and was shot by Armed Response. He’s wounded but he’ll recover.”

“Was everyone else all right?”

“No injuries to officers or public.”

“Thank God. I should never have let Teri go in pursuit.”

“You didn’t, you tried to stop her. It’s clear from the recording of the call you made. This was in no way your fault.”

“Ah, she was just a kid. I was the senior officer.”

James’ grip tightens, “At first,” he says. “They couldn’t tell me which of you was seriously hurt.”

I rest against him and he holds me firmly, easing the pounding of my head, the aching of my bones and, as he always used to, a deeper, older pain.

xxx

Laura is back by the time I wake up again. I find her and James in the kitchen. He pours me tea from a recently made pot, puts bread in the toaster and we share a sombre breakfast. Laura goes upstairs to rest for a couple of hours before she has to go back to work and James prepares to leave.

“Innocent asked me to take over the case until you get back,” he tells me.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, I’ll be in a bit later.”

I am surveyed critically. Then he shrugs, “In that case, I’ll be working with you, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it is. I want this wrapped up and soon.”

James puts on his coat and checks for phone and keys.

“Do you want a lift home?”

I know he will be passing close to my flat so I agree. When we get there, I offer him the use of the shower, “You’ve got your stuff still here, you can change.”

“I’ll take the bag, if that’s okay, and shower at work.”

I get it down from its place on top of the wardrobe. I am glad to be rid of it. It represents too much I can hardly bear to think about and certainly don’t have time to brood over now.

“Well, anyway, thank you,” I say as he takes it without a word. “You must have had an uncomfortable night.”

He acknowledges my thanks with a brief smile, “I’ll see you later, sir.”

When I get into work, I find the place buzzing with furious activity. CID’s resources have been diverted to the twin goals of getting justice for Teri Connor and shutting down the criminal gang we have spent the last months investigating. 

Much of the evidence collected so far has not been deemed strong enough to proceed on, relying as it does on iffy statements from users and dealers. SOCU use it to get clearance to organise raids on suspect premises, to search every inch of each property and look into every bank account and safe deposit box. They cross the names off the top of the tree first and then mop up the rest. I feel no sense of satisfaction; we should have done this months ago.

I focus on Mark Baker with James. When he is interviewed, he denies everything but there is enough now to charge him with involvement in both Ibrahim’s and Teri’s deaths. Charges relating to importing and supplying drugs also start to take shape against him.

After Baker is charged, James is called back to the Robbery job. The new recruit will be starting shortly so he only needs to handover and tie up a couple of cases. It ought to work out well as our colleague in Major Crime has set a date for her retirement, creating the anticipated inspector vacancy.

After James leaves, I work on shoring up the case with the rest of the team, assisting SOCU when they mobilise to make arrests and dealing, sergeant-less, with the standard quota of murder and mayhem.

We get the news that James has made inspector while we are in the midst of the major operation. I hear it from Innocent and then get a text from James. There is no time for a drink to celebrate and I only see him again at Teri’s funeral.

xxx

I am home during my first weekend off in a month when Jean Innocent, often to be found at her desk on Saturday morning, rings me.

“Robbie, why isn’t James applying for the Major Crime Unit vacancy?”

“Is that what he said?”

“He hasn’t spoken to you?”

“No. No, he hasn’t.”

“I’m writing a reference for Buckinghamshire.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Can’t you talk to him?”

“I doubt it’ll do any good.” 

“Nonsense, speak to him today. He’s got a start date in a week.” 

She ends the call and I phone James.

“Hello, sir,” he says cautiously. “I was going to phone you.”

“I’ve just spoken to Jean Innocent,” I tell him.

“Then you already know.”

“About Buckinghamshire? I do. I’m supposed to talk you out of it. Where are you off to?”

“Milton Keynes. There’s a job in Fraud.”

“Fraud’s a bit of a leap. Is that what you’re interested in?”

“I ought to try my hand at different types of cases.”

“I see.”

“Meaning?”

“I give it a fortnight.”

He laughs, “That long?”

“Are you going for the right reasons, James? I mean, do you actually want this actual job? It’s a long way to go to find out you don’t.”

“I thought I might be better suited to something like Fraud. Temperamentally I mean.”

“I don’t doubt you’d excel at it and it’s a worthwhile career, no question.”

“But -.”

“But wouldn’t you find it a bit dry? The Major Crime vacancy has your name on it because you’re good at solving murders, brilliant even. You know that, don’t you?”

He falls silent for a time, “I’m grateful,” he says. “But even so. I think I need a clean break.”

I get the message; I’m a bit slow but I get it.

“Right, well, then, do you need a hand to move? Anything I can help with?”

There is another, more awkward, pause.

“I’m here already,” he says. “I drove up a couple of days ago. My stuffs in storage until I find somewhere to live.”

Get away before anyone has a chance to talk you out of it and avoid any awkward scenes. I get the message. 

“So, then - good luck,” I tell him. “Let us know how you get on.”

I hear his voice catch, “Thank you, sir,” he says.

I go back to my place on the sofa until a respectable hour for opening a beer comes round.

xxx

Summer rolls by with little contact between us until I find myself sitting next to James outside a courtroom. Mark Baker’s case is finally scheduled for trial and we are waiting to give evidence.  
James is looking tired, thin and funereal in his tailored black suit. My heart gets another bruising. 

“How’s the new job?” I ask him. “Are you enjoying Fraud?”

“Lasted a fortnight,” he says with a rueful smile. “Actually, not even that long. A complete disaster.”

I daren’t ask; James’ disasters are always complete. 

“And then,” I suggest. “Someone murdered someone and no one else could prove what happened.”

“And I never looked back.”

“You can’t escape your fate.”

“Apparently not. I hope Milton Keynes isn’t my fate, though.”

“No. No one deserves that.”

“How about you?” He asks. “How are you getting on? I miss dead academics and their lying families.”

“I’ve got myself a new sergeant. A Yorkshire lass.”

“Someone who speaks your language, at last.”

“Didn’t I just say she was from Yorkshire?”

“True, Tyneside and Yorkshire are on different continents.” He hesitates. “And how is Dr Hobson? How’s Laura?”

He is looking intently at me now as if my answer is crucially important. So I don’t say, ‘she is wondering why her friend didn’t bother to say goodbye before he left’. I tell him, she is fine and would like to hear from him. I’m not sure what he was expecting but this clearly wasn’t it.

As soon as he is released by the court, James has to go. He tells me his dad is now in a local nursing home and he is going to visit him before it gets too late in the day.

I text him a week or so later to tell him Mark Baker has been found guilty of Teri Connor’s manslaughter plus a charge relating to the use of a firearm. The Ibrahim case fell apart due to Lucius having second thoughts about giving evidence against Baker. It is the way these things go. He has guilty verdicts on some of the drug charges and will serve prison time for these as well as for manslaughter, just not as much as we had hoped.

xxx

It is winter again. A year has passed since Ravi Ibrahim’s murder and life is proceeding about as expected. The family are doing well and, at work, Lizzie, my new sergeant, is coming along fine. Jean Innocent has moved on to greater things and Laura is in a relationship with the new DI in Major Crime. Good for her. They are off on an extended trip to New Zealand and there is talk of early retirement and even emigration.

It is late, I am alone in my flat and thinking about going to bed when my doorbell rings. Although I’ve heard nothing from James since the trial, it is oddly unsurprising to find him there on the doorstep. He is wearing a crumpled suit and loose tie, as if he dressed for work a couple of days ago and hasn’t changed since. It is clear he has been drinking but I also see something is wrong. I bring him in.

“What is it, James?” 

“My father.” He stumbles over his words. “He’d been having these strokes and this afternoon -.”

“Is he gone?”

“Didn’t wake up. He’s gone.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” 

“I couldn’t face the drive back.” He looks up. “Is this all right? I know it’s a cheek.”

“Of course it’s all right.”

“Are you sure I’m not – am I interrupting?” He asks.

“What’s there to interrupt? Go on in.” I guide him into the flat. “Do you want a drink or have you had enough?”

“Yes,” he says, frowning. “Both.”

“Perhaps not then.”

He wanders the room, reacquainting himself with it; stopping at the framed photographs, running a finger along the shelves of CDs, studying the book titles.

Then he turns to me and announces, “This is one of those nights.”

“Sorry?”

“One of those nights when I don’t think I can survive if I’m not breathing the same oxygen as you.”

I stare at him.

“I’ve had lots of these nights in the past year. Bloody awful. So obviously – obviously - I can survive. I just don’t want to.”

“Let’s get you lying down, shall we?” I say cautiously. “We can have this conversation when we’re sober.”

“In my family we never touch,” he says, looking curiously at my hand on his arm. “Never say ‘I love you’. That’s all considered distasteful.”

I sigh, “I never would have guessed.”

“And even today, when it couldn’t possibly have made any difference, I still couldn’t manage to hold his hand.”

“He knew you loved him.”

“Did he? I mean, you don’t. I love you. And you don’t know.”

Thirty seconds later he is in the bathroom throwing up. I hear the loo flush, the tap run and then nothing. I go in and find him sitting on the floor. He has concertinaed himself into the space between the bath and the wall and has his head in his hands. I sit down next to him and reach an arm around his shoulders. He is still for as long as it takes him to decide to twist himself round into my arms.

“What’s all this now?” I say, trying to soothe. “Getting yourself upset.”

“Are you with Dr Hobson yet?” He asks, his head pressed into my shoulder.

“Laura? No. She’s seeing someone.”

“Who?”

“The man doing the job that should have been yours.”

“But why not you?”

“James, come on.”

“No, tell me. Did you ask her out?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you really not?”

There is a long meditative pause, “Tell me. Please.”

“James, it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted anyone but you.”

This time the pause for assimilation is so long I wonder if he has fallen asleep.

“Then, I’ve hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. My fault for letting you do something you weren’t comfortable with.”

I feel rather than hear his laugh, “Is that what you thought? That I wasn’t comfortable. Too comfortable more like.”

“You thought it was wrong to be with me, you know you did.”

“Until I tried to be without you.”

“And then?”

“You asked me why Ginny broke up with me.”

“Did I?”

“And I lied.”

“It wasn’t any of my business.”

“She finished with me because she said I was ‘clearly gay’.”

I stroke back his damp hair. “Other people and their labels. Did you not tell her about the Yorkie bars?”

“She’s a lawyer, she wasn’t having any of that.”

“And is she right?”

“It was always you. Since the beginning.”

“James?”

“We went about it all wrong. Those nights we had. I needed you too much - for – everything. I had to show you – me - I could survive without you.”

“I never thought you couldn’t. It was the other way round I wasn’t sure about. I’m still not.”

There is a sigh that is more a gasp for air.

“I just thought, from what you said - you and Dr Hobson, by now.”

“Nothing like that.”

“When you had to phone someone, after the crash, after Teri, you phoned her.”

“I thought you didn’t want me in your life. I was trying to respect that.” 

“You and Laura together – you’d make so much more sense.”

“When has anything to do with you ever made sense?” I ask, getting nothing but a drowsy hum of acknowledgement in reply.

Things slowly click into place, “James, that’s never why you left?”

He doesn’t answer and I see, this time, he is falling asleep. I get him upright and walking. And, as he drifts in and out, I put him to bed half undressed in my room, answering all his protests until he is under the duvet and sleeping steadily.

I get a spare duvet and make myself uncomfortable on the sofa. I ponder what has been said and realise how thoroughly I have misunderstood what has happened between us. But alcohol-fuelled revelations made in grief and shock are not to be relied on. James is not a forgetful drunk; his brain will torture him with every last embarrassing detail. I don’t doubt, once he has sobered up, he will want to quietly leave. 

Unexpectedly, I sleep for a good few hours, waking around dawn. James has not slipped away; he is sitting in the armchair watching me. Calm now, I see, and greeting me with the half-smile I became overly fond of years ago.

“I won’t ask how you’re feeling,” I say, noting my own collection of sofa-related aches and pains. 

“It is possible I had too much to drink yesterday.”

“Entirely possible.”

“Are you up for tea and self-recrimination?” 

“Tea will do.”

Once I’ve made my way to the bathroom to attend to the necessities, I find him in the kitchen stirring milk into our mugs. I put my hand on his back.

“Okay?”

“Yes, thank you, Robbie.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“My father and I weren’t close, honestly.”

“He was still your dad.”

“He was. I didn’t expect to react as I did. I’m sorry for landing you with all that, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Give over, James. I wouldn’t have wanted you to go anywhere else. I’m glad you came to me.”

“Quite a memorable performance as well.” He hands me my tea, “You must be impressed with how I’ve taken control of my life.”

“I know nothing about your life anymore but I don’t think showing some human emotion means you’ve lost control of it.”

“Philip Hathaway wouldn’t agree.”

“So just another flawed human.”

We tap our mugs together to mark the passing of another flawed human and then sip our tea in silence.

“So you remember last night?” I ask him.

“In glorious technicolour.”

“I thought you might. I expected you not to be here when I woke up.”

“Being the coward that I am?”

“Being that some remarkable things were said and you might have regretted one or two of them.”

“I think, you know,” he hesitates. “I don’t regret any of it. I mean, I could have done without the projectile vomiting, but apart from that.”

“If that’s the case, I’ve also got something to say. Something I should have said a long time ago.”

He seems to physically brace himself and I wonder what he is expecting. I wonder why we have apparently communicated nothing of value in all the years we’ve known each other.

“I think I was right to turn my car around and not go into your flat that night after Ravi Ibrahim’s murder. What we were doing wasn’t healthy for either of us and especially not you.”

“Yes,” he says. “I’ve always known that too.”

“But it doesn’t get easier. This business of trying to live without you. I miss you as much as I did the day I left you standing there and I started to lose you. The day you went away. Yesterday you said you loved me, today you’re not taking it back. Are you taking it back?”

He slowly shakes his head.

“So why can’t we be together? My beautiful, complicated James, who likes to do things the hard way, who buggers off to Milton Keynes because of how much he loves me. Stay with me. Be with me.”

He stares at me in amazement and then all he says after that whole bloody soliloquy is, “Robbie, yes.”

He dips his head to kiss me. Tea in hand like a pair of idiots, we kiss.

xxx

He and his sister have a funeral to arrange and I have to work. But he comes back to me at the end of the day, and it is my bed he sleeps in, and my arms he falls asleep in.

He has an overnight bag with him for the nights he has spent at the nursing home. I’m not having that. I find places in drawers and on shelves for everything in it.

 

End

 

June 2016

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Edwin Morgan's beautiful poem, When You Go


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